I've never really considered the Air Traffic Control issues of UAVS. I suppose it's less of an issue in the wide empty sky's of the USA but in the
UK's crowded airspace I can see that there are causes for concern. Can anyone explain to me how these aircraft are controlled? Is it via
ground-stations, satellite or autonomous computers? I assume it's a bit more sophisticated than a bloke in an anorak standing on a hill with a remote
controller.

Actually, the real sadness is that this is British Bureaucratic BS in action as a function of some civil service idiot paying for his retirement to
sit on a committee and reach some very obvious conclusions:

1. 90% of aircraft fly on autopilot waypoints 90% of the time, same as drones. Simply because computers are better at it and there are no real
obstacles to avoid.
2. When something 'goes wrong' the drone need only ring a bell on a monitor and Farmer Brown can come set a new waypoint or trigger the emergency
recovery parachute.
3. TCAS is available down to remarkably small sizes while the use of commercial grade visionics gear could back this up with autonomous EODAS type
systems (for manned aircraft), if only someone would pay for the initial development. Alternatively, put if the UAV's are 'M-class or smaller';
put the bloody beacons on the ground and have them act like a virtual pet fence to the UAV. And a 'flight activities in XbyYbyZ airspace' warning
to aircraft passing through (TCAS as a block airspace consumption).
4. Go outside, look up, what do you see? Great Flipping Expanses of NOT A DAMN THING. And what IS visible is typically well over 5,000ft up.
Provided Farmer Brown didn't try to set an altitude record (i.e. manned floor of 2,000ft, UAV ceiling of 1,500ft) these systems should be no more
dangerous than ESTES freaking rockets.

CONCLUSION:
Truly, THE SADDEST PART of this entire sorry mess is inherent to these two contradictory statements:

>>
Because flying a drone in normal airspace is banned, commercial operators have been unable to take advantage of the technology. "Every regulation for
flight has been written on the assumption that a man would be in the cockpit," Mr Jewell said. "You have to go back to first principles to explore
every aspect of controlled flight and then what is needed to be different to make it safe for unmanned flight."
>>

>>
The question that often arises is whether autonomous vehicles could one day be used to carry passengers. Mr Jewell said companies would be cautious in
entering this market. "Nobody is suggesting that we leap to unmanned transport - that is clearly many decades away and may or may not ever be
achieved. The public will make a judgment over whether that's something they want to see."
>>

Man was onboard the first airplanes because he wanted the freedom of immitating a bird. If we wanted a better spy drone, we could have used less
money to put a camera on a kite and gotten 'military utility' a helluva lot sooner.

With modern electronics, man DOES NOT FLY his own aircraft, 90% of the time. An autopilot and FLCS does, better than a rated aviator. If these
systems FAIL, not even a rated aviator can save the aircraft. But (at speeds under 250 knots) a parachute recovery+airbag system could.

UAVs portend the first chance in nearly a century to wrest control of aviation development (especially miniaturization of powerplants and vehicle
configurations) away from the worthless military elitist subculture. So that, potentially, a man can make a vertical lift off from his hoverpad,
avoid the snarl of London traffic and the nightmare of the A/M class road system in weather and touch down 10-15 minutes later from a nice rural home
over 30 miles away.

SAVING FUEL by virtue of /needing power/ for less than half the time would normally expend driving. Particularly fuel cell fuel. Something important
in an era of Global Warming and the already perceived British need to shift electrical generation to petro-indepedendent sources.

Yet the way this is headed, 'surveillance and monitoring' will be something only high level commercial users (themselves numbering only a handful of
potential sales) will pay to employ in exploiting wide area corporate assets that they cannot otherwise manage. It's just so sad that the capitalist
'free market' doctrine does not make institutional investments in social mechanisms to create wider ranges of utilization than the immediate
'regulatable' obvious utilization will pay for in corporate use.

5 million air cars or 5,000 surveillance assets, all owned by 'publically held, not owned' entities who can pay to take ever larger chunks of
responsibility away from both government which leverages the technology for their use and the average Jo Citizen who simply cannot compete with their
deeper pockets.

The same thing is happening here and it sickening because we aren't even truly /trying/ to make a rapid shift to hybrid/electric alternatives in the
existing market where a 10 billion dollar per quarter profit margin is the norm.

Thanks CH1466. A really illuminating reply. Although I've always tended to favour the 'cock up', as opposed to conspiracy theory of history, but
there does seem to be a hidden agenda behind so many contemporary technical advances.

CH, your posts can be interesting but please can you be a bit more concise? I mean that was nearly 1000 words and I can’t actually see any
over-reaching point that’s being made, just bits and pieces that don’t quite connect. I’m tired so maybe I’m just being a bit dense but in
less than 200 words can you say what you actually mean?

Originally posted by Mike_A
CH, your posts can be interesting but please can you be a bit more concise? I mean that was nearly 1000 words and I can’t actually see any
over-reaching point that’s being made, just bits and pieces that don’t quite connect. I’m tired so maybe I’m just being a bit dense but in
less than 200 words can you say what you actually mean?

I think he was aiming his post at the type of people who like the detail and who do not mind reading a few hundred\thousand words more if that brings
them a a fuller picture of how the author arrived at the conclusion. Choosing to be concise assumes a very similar knowledge base for everyone reading
which he knows is not the case for the massive majority of the people on the forum;if you can be both concise and well understood that mostly means
that you don't know anything more than the rest of the rabble.

Well I don’t mean to cause offence I just didn’t think there was a full or really detailed picture in that post at all. He touched on one or two
different related points, a few unrelated ones, and a few wrong ones but didn’t really make any point that I could see. Can you tell me what his
point was? It looks like he’s saying that regulating UAV flight is all bureaucratic garbage but I didn’t want to make that assumption.

Originally posted by Mike_A
Well I don’t mean to cause offence I just didn’t think there was a full or really detailed picture in that post at all. He touched on one or two
different related points, a few unrelated ones, and a few wrong ones but didn’t really make any point that I could see.

Well you do cause offense as your assuming that because it does not make sense to you that it is somehow nonsensical. When something does not make
sense to you is that not a sign that the other person might know more than you on any number of topics? The alternative is obviously that everyone you
do not understand must be somehow stupid; something i refuse to consider as it leads nowhere positive.

Can you tell me what his point was? It looks like he’s saying that regulating UAV flight is all bureaucratic garbage but I didn’t want to
make that assumption.

What he was basically saying is that those who control the world do things in exactly the way that will retain them power and general control over
humanity for as long as they can manage it. While there are soldiers on the ground people will always believe that 'things are not as bad' as 'our
boys' and wont indulge in the type of wholesale slaughter that America's 'enemies' can always somehow manage but the moment it's all robots with
clear lines of responsibility they will not only lose their jobs but the few that will remain will lose all the people they normally blamed the
atrocities on. I would love to try summarize the entire post but i just do not have all week to attempt touching on and explaining all the issues
raised.

Why not just ask him question about the points you do not understand? People like us ( i'm taking a chance by inserting myself

) absolutely LOVE
explaining the whys and how's that brought us to our current points of view as we are confident that it's defensible.

Please don’t get upset about it, all I want is clarification as based on what I know his posted didn’t quite connect. I didn’t say he didn’t
know what he was talking about or that it was nonsense just that I didn’t think it was presented in the most easy to understand way.

If he was as you suggest saying that this is all about those in power retaining control, it just doesn’t make sense based on what was said.

For example the first point and the subsequent four were somewhat arbitrary. While the first three were correct in a limited way they are not
applicable across the board; while some types of UAVs could certainly operate in ad hoc restricted airspace and just warn other airspace users that
isn’t going to work in every case. Similarly not every UAV will be able to just “ring a bell” to warn the operator to change a waypoint. Number
4 was just plain wrong in my opinion, I don’t know about where CH lives but when I go outside and look up I’m pretty much guaranteed to see some
form of aircraft, we get everything from airliners to police helicopters to private aircraft flying around here at all times of day and no I’m not
near any airfield. But in the end none of those points said anything about why ASTRAEA is an attempt for this nefarious minority to retain control.

ASTRAEA (which is what the topic is about) was set up broadly to define the technologies required to allow UAVs to operate safely and the regulations
needed to make sure that these safety measures are implemented properly. Why is this a bad thing?

On the two contradictory statements I didn’t find them contradictory at all, one was about the need to regulate UAV use and the second was about the
willingness of the general public to be flown around by a computer (yes I know that’s virtually what happens already but that’s besides the point,
it’s about perception not reality).

Originally posted by Mike_A
Please don’t get upset about it, all I want is clarification as based on what I know his posted didn’t quite connect. I didn’t say he didn’t
know what he was talking about or that it was nonsense just that I didn’t think it was presented in the most easy to understand way.

Which one again , imo , says more about you than about him...

If he was as you suggest saying that this is all about those in power retaining control, it just doesn’t make sense based on what was said.

It's the only thing that makes sense in the context of technology not reaching the market place for general use. GM were crushing brand new electric
motors rather soon after thet got on the market when they realised that there was just no money in it for them.

For example the first point and the subsequent four were somewhat arbitrary.

Arbitrary because you do not see any relationship between the issues or arbitrary becuase there can not be any?

While the first three were correct in a limited way they are not applicable across the board; while some types of UAVs could certainly operate
in ad hoc restricted airspace and just warn other airspace users that isn’t going to work in every case.

I would be very surprised if it did not but i guess there is no way i am going to be proved right any time soon...

Similarly not every UAV will be able to just “ring a bell” to warn the operator to change a waypoint. Number 4 was just plain wrong in my
opinion, I don’t know about where CH lives but when I go outside and look up I’m pretty much guaranteed to see some form of aircraft, we get
everything from airliners to police helicopters to private aircraft flying around here at all times of day and no I’m not near any airfield.

All in the hands of people who are already part of the system in that they are basically rich enough or employed by those rich enough.

But in the end none of those points said anything about why ASTRAEA is an attempt for this nefarious minority to retain control.

That's what the nefarious minority always do and since i see no jet cars or many electric cars i am pretty confident in what i have suggested so far.

ASTRAEA (which is what the topic is about) was set up broadly to define the technologies required to allow UAVs to operate safely and the
regulations needed to make sure that these safety measures are implemented properly. Why is this a bad thing?

Because all these things have been endlessly talked about for decades and nothing happens. It's the same story with numerous inventions that just
never manages to make it to the market.

On the two contradictory statements I didn’t find them contradictory at all, one was about the need to regulate UAV use and the second was
about the willingness of the general public to be flown around by a computer (yes I know that’s virtually what happens already but that’s besides
the point, it’s about perception not reality).

Regulation will be death of us all ( which is generally what i am driving at here)! Where is the supposed market forces here!

Oh come on you’re starting to take this a bit personal now, all I asked for was a little more clarity of his view there’s no need to get all het
up about it.

Arbitrary because you do not see any relationship between the issues or arbitrary becuase there can not be any?

Arbitrary because the points made didn’t have any meaning in the wider context, they were just random facts/semi-facts.

Back to the topic of regulations etc…

If what you are saying was true then you have to show two things,

A) That the use of UAVs in civil airspace does not need to be regulated and
B) That there is any reason why the CAA (or other influential body) would want to stunt the growth of the civil UAV sector.

Nothing has been said that goes close to suggesting that.

We’ve got the DTI and industry both investing significant amounts of money, time and effort into programmes like ASTRAEA aimed solely at integrating
UAVs into the civil airspace and making them accessible by a wide variety of users.

I’m not sure why you’re talking about jet cars and such, the reasons they haven’t emerged are much more to do with problems such as fuel
efficiency, volume available for passengers and luggage, the actual amount of space such a vehicle would take up, the public perception of being flown
around solely by a computer etc. The UAV issue is vastly different.

While the CAA may not be massively efficient (that’s not what I’m saying btw) there’s no conspiracy meant to keep some big wig in power or
anything like that.

Apologies for the major bump, but The Guardian have just released that they are starting to test this entirely pilotless technology from the end of
May through to September. Interesting to see it's only taken 6 years to get to the test flying the technology part.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.